


Icarus Descending

by Linguini



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Concussions, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Plane Crashes, Why you should always follow safety regulations, and might say "we told you so", the CAA would not approve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-30
Updated: 2013-01-30
Packaged: 2017-11-27 13:42:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/662644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linguini/pseuds/Linguini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After badly crashing, Douglas emerges fortunate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Icarus Descending

After the crash, he’s never quite able to figure out how it happened, this spectacular stroke of bad luck. Especially while _he’s_ in control. It’s not as if _Martin_ was flying the plane, or even on board for that matter. No, it’s on a short cargo flight to Lincolnshire, with only himself and 2,000 tulip bulbs fresh from Holland that his famed luck finally runs out.

By the time Douglas realizes what’s happening, Gertie’s already turned her nose to the ground, shuddering in distress. It’s all he can do to level her out enough that she makes more of a ditch in the ground than a hole, though it’s not enough to keep him from being flung about the cockpit like a ragdoll once they hit the ground--a consequence of his perpetual shirking of safety regulations when he deems them unnecessary, like on 30-minute flights that don’t even leave England.

“Carolyn is going to kill me,” is, annoyingly, his first thought when he regains consciousness. Douglas steels himself against the nausea that’s already turning his stomach and carefully, slowly opens his eyes. There’s not much to see, just a large expanse of grey mist. His first, panicked thought is that he’s damaged his eyes. It takes a bit longer for his addled mind to register that he’s lying on the floor with his face pressed against the wall.

Darkness sparks in his peripheral vision when he tries to move, and he’s forced to shut his eyes again. It doesn’t last long as the waves of nausea overcome him and he’s violently ill. Between the migraine pummeling his brain and the illness, there’s not much processing power left for evaluation or movement. Douglas lies there for a moment, gathering his wits before he tries to move.

Eventually, he manages to get himself upright, though it takes considerable effort and causes him to gray out twice. He spends some time cataloguing his injuries, starting with the top of his head and working his way down. He flexes each part cautiously, though he keeps his eyes shut. He’s not willing to risk being ill again.

From his head to his toes it seems like every inch of him is crying out in protest. His knee throbs and is already stiff, his right wrist is quite obviously broken, there’s a bruise developing on his chest from hitting the console, and the trickle of blood from his hairline is dripping into his ear. All in all, not a good way to end a flight.

 _Granted, there are worse ways_ he thinks, though he’s hard pressed to come up with them now. Around him is only the silence of the countryside and the ticking of cooling metal as Gertie’s systems shut themselves off. There’s nothing to do but wait.

He’d managed to get a mayday off before his precipitous fall from the heavens, and he knows ATC was tracking him and would have noticed him falling off the radar. Emergency crews should be on their way and he’ll be taken care of. None of that knowledge helps the eerie feeling of being the only person left in the world. 

In the dark, rapidly-cooling cockpit, he feels an island.

Just as the stillness and the silence start to become unbearable, and he’s starting to wonder whether he’ll be forced to be the agent of his own rescue, Douglas hears the sirens of emergency crews in the distance. The sense of relief that washes over him is nearly enough to make him pass out again, but he manages to hold on, digging the nails of his good hand into his palm. When they arrive, the crews are efficient and methodical. Though they’ve not trained specifically for plane crashes, they’ve obviously worked together long enough to be a well-oiled team. With minimal fuss, the manage to get Douglas splinted and maneuver him into the ambulance, though it takes some doing. He’s not certain that this situation is any better, as the ride to the hospital is one of the worst experiences of his life. They’re deep in the countryside, and he’s forced to battle the nausea again as they drive over dips and weave around crags and boulders.

Keeping himself from being ill becomes Douglas’s main concern. He waves off the questions the attendants ask and grips the cool metal of the trolley’s rails with his good hand. Every part of him aches, and he wants nothing more than to go home. In an attempt to distract himself and remain conscious, Douglas reviews what little of the flight he remembers, trying to pinpoint the exact moment everything went wrong. Frustratingly, most of it is a blank. He remembers filing the flight plan, and the bet he made with Dirk on Man U before he left, but everything after takeoff is missing. It’s as annoying as it is disconcerting.

Long hours pass once they reach the hospital. Douglas suffers through the tests and the scans impatiently, snapping terse answers at the nurses and doctors in a thoroughly foul mood. The failure of the crash lingers at the back of his throat, and the guilt that churns his gut at the thought of MJN folding without its lone source of income makes him more ill than the concussion. He’s given the hospital staff his mobile rather than try to remember phone numbers, especially since he’s not entirely sure he’s removed Helena as his emergency contact, and eventually they leave him alone.

Martin, somewhat unsurprisingly, is the first one to make it to the hospital, skidding to a stop at the nurse’s station. Douglas can hear his “I am the Captain” voice through the curtains as he demands information. What the staff can’t hear, that Douglas, with his years of experience sitting at Martin’s right hand _can_ , is the worry underneath the bluster. It’s a bit misplaced, he thinks. While it’s true Martin took seven attempts to earn his license, his near-constant flying with MJN means he’s racked up an amazing number of flight hours for a pilot his age--more than enough to outweigh his rocky start. He should have no trouble finding a job at one of the smaller airlines. 

Not that it matters now. By the time Martin manages to find him, Douglas is lost again to the gray twilight of his head injury. Everything is soft and surreal as if he’s underwater. He barely registers Martin’s presence, let alone understands the questions he’s asking. Martin eventually gives it up as a lost cause and drags a chair over from the other side of the room so he can see when Carolyn and Arthur arrive.

Other than the humming of various machines in the room, it’s deathly quiet. Martin eventually pulls out his ever-present paperback and settles in to read while he waits. He raises an eyebrow when Douglas finally slips off to sleep, though he notes the time absently in case he’s asked. Carolyn arrives with Arthur in tow not long after, marching in with a thunderous look on her face that dissipates at the sight of Douglas, battered and bruised. Arthur lets out a soft gasp and looks stricken, approaching the bed carefully and running his fingers gently over the bruises on Douglas’s wrist, chattering at him softly.

“Please tell me,” Carolyn says crossly to Martin, “that he’s seen a doctor already.” Martin shrugs and admits he doesn’t know, explaining that Douglas was something less than conversational when he arrived, and goes out to check. In the background, Arthur has progressed to reading a magazine from the waiting room to Douglas. It’s not long before the incessant sound wears on her nerves, already frayed by being at the hospital in the first place, and she snaps.

“Quiet, Arthur,” she says, turning to her son. “I can’t hear myself think, and that bandage on his head says Douglas probably doesn’t appreciate you nattering away about nothing at him.” Her tone is a bit sharper than she’d intended, and she immediately apologizes by giving him twenty pounds and sending him for coffee and chocolate while they wait.

“Right-o,” he says, chipper as ever and is off.

 _Somewhere,_ she muses, _a solar system is missing its star_ and then immediately dismisses the thought as frivolous. Martin returns not long after, practically frog-marching the doctor into the room. Carolyn introduces herself brusquely and demands information. She’s already tired of being in this place of sickness and disease; the sooner they can take Douglas home with them, the happier everyone will be.

The doctor tells them Douglas is free to go home, as long as he stays with someone, and gives them his discharge instructions and prescriptions. Carolyn immediately volunteers her house, and Martin agrees. His new flat may have two bedrooms, but he’ll have to work extra jobs with the van to make ends meet until they figure out what to do and won’t be able to monitor Douglas as well as the Shappey tag-team will. It takes some doing, but they manage to bundle Douglas into Carolyn’s car, though not without an exhibition of every curse and invective Douglas has learned in his decades of experience. The anti-nausea medicine the doctor prescribed takes the edge off the worst of the queasiness, but it’s still an uncomfortable journey, and by the time he’s at Carolyn’s house, he feels like he could sleep for a week.

Unfortunately, it’s not to be. Arthur takes his charge very seriously, waking Douglas up at the prescribed time religiously, no matter how loudly he protests or what objects end up clattering against the door. The result is an exhausted, wrung-out Douglas, a slightly-subdued Arthur, and an annoyed Carolyn. Things come to a head when Carolyn takes the first officer by the horns, marching into Douglas’s room carrying his painkillers and a pillow. “Your choice,” she says, “but if you don’t stop arguing, I will take matters into my own hands. Medicate yourself, or I will smother you where you lie.”

Various protests spring up but die unspoken on his lips. A Carolyn in this mood is trifled with at great cost, and in any case, his head is aching too much for him to come up with a coherent response in time. Douglas acquiesces, dry swallowing the pills, and the house settles into a cautious peace that lasts for the three days he stays with them.

Whatever his thoughts on their respective bedside manners, Carolyn and Arthur prove to be surprisingly gracious hosts, and Douglas is almost (only almost, mind) sorry to be leaving. It’ll be awhile before they scrape up enough money for the repairs Gertie needs, or for Douglas’s wrist and knee to heal enough for him to fly, but the four members of MJN find themselves assembling in the Portakabin out of habit anyway. The first time Douglas makes it there, he stops in the doorway unseen, listening to Martin complain about the time off. “Douglas is probably thinking of even more evil games to play, like scientific names of fungi or ancient Persian kings or something.”

“Xerxes,” Douglas replies smoothly, sauntering in. “Or possibly Hector. No, wait. Antimachius. Definitely my first answer.”

“You’re just making them up now,” Martin accuses. “They have to be ones I know.” Douglas sighs.

“Zeus, then, if you’re going to be childish about it,” he says grinning in that familiar way. And the game begins.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to sproid and c3mf, for being great betas and cheerleaders. And for setting the writing assignment. It's a good thing I know my ABCs...


End file.
